Rail & Freight
By Tushar Gupta · · Source: DFCCIL Annual Reports 2020-21 to 2024-25
politypolicy.com · by Tushar Gupta
India, in Infographics

Seventeen Freight Trains In December 2020. 147,990 In The Year To March 2026.

One Train Every Forty-Four Hours, Then One Every Three And A Half Minutes — averaged across all 365 days of 2025-26, not a best month. The chart below draws every month DFCCIL publishes month-wise: December 2020 to 12,497 in March 2025. Switch between the three things the reports measure.

The Ramp
735×
17 trains in December 2020, 12,497 in March 2025
Between Trains, All Year
3.6 min
Across every day of FY2025-26. The first month’s gap was 44 hours
Trains Run In Total
306,632
Across the fifty-two months drawn here
FY2025-26
147,990
Up 14%, an average of 405 trains a day. Annual total only — not drawn above
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How This Was Built

Five annual reports, fifty-two months, and two places where DFCCIL contradicts itself.

Trains a month = DFCCIL’s own count of trains run on the corridors — not trains handled at interchange
Cross-check = trains a month ÷ days in that month = the reported trains-per-day, in all 52 months
Corridor split = EDFC + WDFC, scaled onto the verified monthly total
Between trains = 1,440 minutes ÷ trains a day — on the FY2025-26 average, not a peak month
Western speed, March 2023 — 58.7 or 48.7?
The FY2024-25 report prints 58.7 kmph. The FY2022-23 and FY2023-24 reports both print 48.7. A single transposed digit in the newest report, resolved two-to-one in favour of 48.7, which is what this page uses.
Trains, February 2023 — the split does not add up
All three reports agree the month’s count is 6,438 trains, which is 229.93 a day across 28 days. But the corridor split all three print — EDFC 141.6 plus WDFC 80.4 — comes to 222.0 a day, short by 7.93. The total is corroborated three times and reconciles with the count; the split does not. So the split is scaled onto the verified total, which changes nothing in the other fifty-one months.
FY2025-26 is named but not drawn
DFCCIL has reported 147,990 trains for FY2025-26, up 14% on FY2024-25. Its comparator — 130,116 for FY2024-25 — matches the total built from the month-wise tables here exactly, which is what makes the newer figure trustworthy. But it is an annual number: no month-wise table for that year has been published, so it appears in the headline and the tiles and nowhere on the chart.
December 2020 has no western speed. That is not a missing value — the western corridor carried its first trains in January 2021, a month after the eastern one. The line breaks there rather than bridging a month that has nothing to average.

One figure deliberately left out. In January 2026 DFCCIL reported a record 892 “interchange trains handled in a single day” between the DFC and five Indian Railways zones. Interchange handling counts handovers at the boundary, not trains run on the corridors, so it cannot be set beside anything on this page.

Indian Railways’ goods trains averaged 23.2 kmph in 2018-19, on its own Year Book figures as reproduced in DFCCIL’s FY2023-24 report. The eastern corridor has not been below 37 kmph in any month of this series. The 2020-21 reading of 43.2 kmph on the wider network is flagged in the source as a Covid year — an empty network, not a faster one.

The Numbers

All fifty-two months, every measure the reports carry.

MonthTrains EDFCWDFC Per dayGTKMmillions EDFCkmphWDFCkmph
Dec 2020171700.61958.6no trains
Jan 20216465549220.850161.847.0
Feb 202181561120429.160768.342.0
Mar 202199274424832.077864.837.5
Apr 202177162115025.754764.538.0
May 20211,07182324834.582159.041.5
Jun 20211,4021,03037246.71,00567.026.0
Jul 20211,68393674754.31,45267.027.0
Aug 20211,74080293856.11,69962.533.5
Sep 20211,68772296556.21,64654.549.5
Oct 20212,0819611,12067.11,88649.044.0
Nov 20211,8908731,01763.01,84857.052.5
Dec 20212,4169301,48677.92,00160.555.0
Jan 20222,9759821,99396.02,31162.054.0
Feb 20222,7448031,94198.02,18465.553.5
Mar 20223,0848152,26999.52,59569.054.0
Apr 20223,4051,4521,953113.52,94962.055.5
May 20224,0211,8802,141129.73,39651.042.5
Jun 20224,4442,2892,155148.13,55749.541.4
Jul 20224,8022,6362,166154.93,85351.145.5
Aug 20224,9562,7682,188159.93,72953.050.1
Sep 20224,6332,6322,001154.43,51253.949.6
Oct 20224,6502,6921,958150.03,42051.054.1
Nov 20225,2553,2532,002175.23,94054.354.4
Dec 20226,0133,7802,233194.04,37754.757.4
Jan 20236,6524,1732,479214.65,06151.257.7
Feb 20236,4384,1072,331229.95,30950.959.3
Mar 20237,0084,3302,678226.16,08543.748.7
Apr 20236,3503,8012,549211.75,82250.257.0
May 20236,4784,0072,471209.06,57150.453.3
Jun 20236,3154,1052,210210.56,49648.453.0
Jul 20236,7794,1792,600218.78,85545.349.7
Aug 20237,0674,2542,813228.09,91147.652.5
Sep 20237,2374,5432,694241.210,43644.855.4
Oct 20237,6084,6862,922245.411,14544.655.5
Nov 20237,2454,6662,579241.511,04845.156.0
Dec 20237,7784,9062,872250.911,56141.754.9
Jan 20247,7684,7143,054250.611,31439.253.8
Feb 20248,2405,0823,158284.112,12641.954.6
Mar 20249,3605,4823,878301.913,84342.153.6
Apr 20249,3585,4753,883311.912,78342.852.6
May 202410,3195,9944,325332.914,26041.653.1
Jun 202410,1795,7824,397339.314,78438.551.7
Jul 202411,2306,6414,589362.316,91437.450.6
Aug 202410,3545,6604,694334.015,55242.748.1
Sep 202410,1535,5874,566338.415,25342.148.5
Oct 202411,0245,9155,109355.616,73144.651.3
Nov 202410,7265,7464,980357.516,28042.753.3
Dec 202411,7726,5095,263379.717,90840.454.0
Jan 202512,1226,4765,646391.017,79339.452.0
Feb 202510,3825,4324,950370.815,61443.455.5
Mar 202512,4976,9035,594403.118,27244.252.9
Fiscal years run April to March. Sources: DFCCIL Annual Reports 2020-21 to 2024-25, month-wise operating tables; FY2025-26 total from DFCCIL, April 2026.
PolityPolicy
by Tushar Gupta · No Rhetoric, Just Data
© 2026 PolityPolicy · by Tushar Gupta · Graphic free to share and reproduce with credit to politypolicy.com. Underlying data belongs to the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India and the Ministry of Railways.